


Confrontation

by Atsalea



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Detention, Fluff and Angst, Hogwarts Eighth Year, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I kind of want to explore the beauty of tagging but I don't want to spoil everything hehe, M/M, Protective Harry Potter, Zacharias is a meanie, because what is originality, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 20:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13131330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atsalea/pseuds/Atsalea
Summary: Malfoy was a Death Eater, that's what Harry himself had always talked about. After the war, hearing Zacharias taunting the boy for it, felt however very wrong.





	Confrontation

**Author's Note:**

> I remember finishing this when it was one in the morning. I told my friend about it, and they were thrilled. I'm mostly just worried about myself.
> 
> Let me hear your thoughts and feel free to correct my grammar in case you find yourself horrified!  
> <3

* * *

 

Sometimes Harry couldn’t bear the ironic touch his life possessed. Six years he had spent solving mysteries in the school, sneaking around, breaking rules and earning detentions. All because of one Lord Voldemort and his old scaly mug. Eighth year was supposed to be perfect; no dying, no stress, no Voldemort. No foolish Gryffindor courage and sneaking around. No detentions.

No time spent in Potions classroom.

The Devil take him.

”Smith”, Harry sighed. ”Fucking marvelous.”

Zacharias Smith’s unpleasant smile dropped a little and his grim eyebrows jumped. He smirked uncertainly, looking even more annoying. ”Almighty Potter. Please do join. If only I’m not too low to keep you company?”

Harry sighed. He felt tired all over and couldn’t be arsed to pick up a fight. ”No, you’ll do just nicely. At least I don’t have to have Malfoy to –”

The door next to them swung open before he got to finish, and a familiar pointy head peeked into the room. Harry met the ceiling with hopeless eyes and released a miserable croak: ”Splendid!”

Malfoy looked almost bored as he walked in, levitating some books and parchments without much outward effort, the show-off tit, and gave them a leering glance.

”Potter. Smith. Great. Just my two favourite people in the world”, he quipped drily and set the books down with ease. Smith took the bait instantly.

”What, Malfoy, not mocking anyone’s parents yet? Did cat get your tongue or have you just got tired of the joke? Because I don’t believe for a second that you’ve grown up.”

Malfoy kept a neutral look on his face and started collecting vials from shelves with steady spellwork. ”If I were you, I would be the last person to share growing up tips, Smith”, he said calmly.

Smith looked almost outrageous but kept his mouth as a firm line. ”Right back at you.”

They were quiet for another twenty minutes. Things started to heat up after.

Malfoy was brewing his potion with intensive focus, and Harry and Zacharias were scrubbing in the opposite ends. After a long silence Malfoy got up to get something from the closets just before Smith. He opened the closet and took out a large book, just the kind Hermione would love to get her paws on. As he walked, Malfoy started flipping through the book aimlessly and collided with Smith on the floor. The other stood up so instantaneously that it looked like he hadn’t moved at all.

”Watch it, Death Eater”, Smith spat with malice, eyes narrow and dripping venom.

Malfoy’s features hardened instantly. He faced his attacker much straighter, looking colder than ever. ”You ought to choose your words with care.”

”Oh, but I choose only truthful words”, sneered Smith. ”After all, there is that mark on your forearm. That’s pretty remorseless. If you don’t like being called nasty names, perhaps you shouldn’t have chosen such nasty hobbies.”

Draco grit his teeth, and few feet further Harry  _heard_ the noise. ”Don’t talk to my face shit you don’t know anything about”, he growled, almost silkily. Smith’s face showed surprised enthusiasm, and he looked as if being on his Christmas spirits.

”I know plenty, Malfoy. I know about your nasty little tattoo. I know how you despise muggles. I know how you squeal like as a ferret. I know how you always like to brag about your cunt of a father whose-”

Malfoy grabbed the front of his robes and yanked him violently out of sudden, making him even closing his mouth a little, astonished.

”I told you. Leave it. Say nothing about the things you don’t have a shitting clue about. I might just put some of those nasty, filthy, obnoxious death-eating curses into use. The part where I gave two flying fucks about the state of your mug fled completely past me.”

Smith blinked. Harry coughed. Malfoy kept his hold a second longer, and when Smith said nothing more, he released him. Everybody was quiet. Apparently, Smith didn’t want to give up.

”You act quite tough, considering you preferred to hide behind your ogre of lackeys during our seven years here. No guts to hate blood on your own, Ferret?”

Malfoy turned his focus on him. Harry opened his mouth to tell Smith to stuff it, because Malfoy wasn’t being the pinhead in the situation, and for once, Harry wanted everyone to be civil with each other. But what Malfoy actually did, silenced him.

Malfoy – the cowardly git who had made Harry’s life misery and always sheltered behind his stupid cronies – threw his wand onto the nearest desk and shoved his hands into the air. Looking absolutely exhausted he yelled: ”Fine! Let’s have it your way then, since you love muggles so damn fiercely! Come on, let’s get it on!”

Smith looked shocked, to say at least. He didn’t seem to know how to react. Draco stepped closer with a bold look in his eyes. ”Come on, Smith! Do it! Fight the ferret! Crush him!” He shoved Smith in the chest. ”Finish him, him and his filthy Mark and pathetic excuse of a father! Do it now, without magic, like the real, big man you are! Show me the real power! Show me what I missed when following Voldemort.” He pushed again, harder. The cold look in his eyes had turned into burning, pure hatred. Hatred for Smith, or himself, or his father, or Voldemort, Harry didn’t know. Perhaps Malfoy himself didn’t know.

”Malfoy, Smith”, Harry said sternly. ”Quit it.”

They didn’t quit it. Malfoy didn’t back down. Smith seemed to wake up from some kind of coma, as some kind of fresh rage suddenly bloomed on his face. He had took the bait, looked more alive. Much like Draco.

”Keep your fucking paws off me, Malfoy! No need to imagine how many innocent lives they have taken!”

It seemed to struck some kind of nerve, as Draco visibly flinched, probably shudder going through him. Insecurity reflected from him, but in a second the rage was back in its place.

”Don’t you just know it? Know all the fucking gross piece of shit details, you sorry, pompous nitwit know-it-all! Know all the nasty shit I performed on innocents with my wand? Know all the pain I went through? Know all the fucking misery it was, not knowing after what corner I'm gonna bite the dust?!” Draco was breathing hard, his eyes unfocused. ”And best of all, not knowing how to get out of that hellhole and make things better?!”

Malfoy was trembling, fighting to stay on his feet. Harry had somewhere during his rant got up and went to stand closer, watching them. Smith was thunderstruck. That joy did not last long.

He curled his lips into the most unpleasant sneer Harry had ever seen and crossed his arms theatrically. ”Playing the victim card now?”

Malfoy sucked in breath, shocked and furious, and sent his fist flying toward the unrealistic idiocy that was Zacharias Smith. Harry leaped into life. He grabbed Draco, not sure where, perhaps his shoulder, perhaps his arm – definetely his arm, the one with the Mark in it. The Mark that everyone despised and judged and that didn’t matter at all in this moment.

Harry stopped Draco’s violent action and pulled himself between them. He faced the steely, burning eyes and pale, furious face. ”Malfoy, stop. Calm down. Do not take his bait.” Harry turned to Zacharias, who looked bemused. ”Quit it, Smith.”

No surprise, it was Malfoy who answered him. Obstinate git. ”You quit it, Potter. This is between me and him.”

”The hell it is”, Harry hissed. ”We don’t need any more of this shit. Everybody has lost their minds because of it. Prejudice this and prejudice that. I’m fucking full of that. The war is finally over. We are adults. If we don’t let go of this idiocy now, we never will. Voldemort wouldn’t have ever got all the power if people had acted less like twats.”

”He wants to beat the shit out of me, I can tell”, Draco said flatly. ”I would gladly give him the pleasure. It would be a nice change, you know, the authentic fistfight instead of Cruciatus.”

”Malfoy, cut the crap!” Smith bellowed and drew his wand. ”You talk so big, I’ll make you splutter!”

Draco didn’t have much time for reaction since his wand laid on the table few feet away, but Harry took less than a blink of an eye drawing his own wand and shoving it onto Smith’s throat frenetically, an open, honest rage in his leafy eyes.

”Keep away from him. Don’t you lay one fucking ugly tip of a finger on him, or I’ll make you sorry for your birth.”

Smith blinked and stepped back. For a moment, no one actually said anything. Then Smith whistled, vexed and poisonous. ”That’s cute.”

Harry lost his eyebrows into his fringe. ”Excuse me?”

Smith made an universal move with his hand. ”Well, I always knew you were bit of a deviant bloke… But guess I should’ve realized it before. You were pretty abnormally obsessed with the Ferret-face two years ago.”

He rounded them both and walked to the door and out of the room without an another word.

Probably both of them wished for the eternity of that moment to stop. Nothing was being said, no words were given. And Harry had his wand in hand and Draco was  _still_ disarmed.

_Wow, I’m in closed space with Malfoy, and no curses are thrown. Is this Neverland?_

”Really noble, Potty.”

_And there’s the normalcy._

”Not everything revolves around you”, Harry said, spinning around at last and pocketing his wand, his voice as featureless as possible. ”Smith did the shit talk, I was being decent human being and helping your sweaty arse out. There’s not much nobility in that.”

Malfoy had his usual sneer back in place, thank gracious heavens and their angels – and he tilted his head in the most irritating, Malfoyish way, which Harry immediately disliked. Not least because it set an unsure feeling in his stomach. Almost like… fluttering?

_I’m an idiot, and I call for all the grounds to swallow me up now, please._

”Smith is not some bull I would be bothered to wave a red flag in front of”, Draco stated, and Harry found the muggle reference oddly comforting. ”And I’m not some pretty damsel in the great need of your legendary wand arm. I was just taking the piss. He was so stupid, throwing around his frivolous rascal comments. I don’t need his permission to walk on school grounds, nor do I fear what he might dare to try if set facing me. I’m smart.”

Harry smiled the more Malfoy bragged. Somehow it felt like home.

”You didn’t have your wand with you. He did. And you asked him to hit you.”

Malfoy rolled his eyes as if it was the poorest point made in the history of humankind. ”Excellent deduction skills, Scarhead. I was playing with his badger-haired sugarcoat of a mind. I know how to call my wand to me. I  _did_ fight in the Battle if you happen to remember.”

Harry did remember. He also remembered the way Malfoy had kind of skipped sides every now and then, depending on who was most likely to save his skin. Harry remembered Ron hitting him when he begged the Death Eater to spare him. Harry remembered the way Malfoy’s hands had seeked his torso, trembling and squeezing, the screams in his ears and the throbbing pain. Harry remembered Draco’s scent. Remembered the fire.

Remembered them saving one other.

”I couldn’t let him hurt you.” There was something warm blossoming on the bridge of Malfoy’s nose. Or perhaps Harry was just seeing stuff. Yes, that was it, he was going mental. Nothing more alarming than that.

”We hurt each other all the time, Potter. Why’s now different?”

Harry pondered.

_The screams. The fire. Arms around him. Another life hanging onto him, being afraid to death. Him not wanting to let go of that life, of that another. Him wanting to save that life._

_”I can’t be sure.”_

”We used to.”

And it was a good answer. The best each of them could’ve given, possibly.

”You know, Potter, this has been one bloody weird discussion. I can stomach Smith squeaking at me about my sins in the war, but this sudden talk about feelings with  _you._ Are you quite sure we're doing it correctly?”

Harry gave a dry laugh. ”Tell me about it. I don’t know a heck about talking them out. I’ve usually just preferred shouting.” He collected his things, the bag, wand and some notes. The scrubbing would do for now, he would tell Slughorn that Smith had ditched rudely first in case he started complaining. ”I’m starving. Wanna grab something?”

Draco shot a glance at his potions work and shrugged. ”Certainly. I have ages to continue with that project. I just hope we won’t run into Smith on our way to the kitchens.”

”Yes, that would be glorious. He would probably just assume his weirdo stuff like a moment before.”

Something flashed in Draco’s eyes. Harry pretended not to notice.

”So”, the blond said, as they exited the classroom, ”I hope there’s pumpkin casserole. I pretty much adore it. Always eat it as supper.” 

”I know”, Harry said without thinking. Draco turned to look at him, astonished. ”You do? How come?”

Yes, the blossoming was most certainly real. His cheeks were flaming, they surely made a nice match with his jewelry-like eyes. ”I tend to notice.”

Draco looked puzzled at that, and Harry sent prayers to the grounds the whole way down to the kitchen.

_You were pretty abnormally obsessed with the Ferret-face two years ago._

_”Quit it.”_

 

* * *

 

_Kitchens. Casserole. The screams. Fire. Dormitories. The horcrux. Good night wishes. Flying through thin air. The fire burns. The morning. School grounds. Arms around him. Draco’s scent is fair. The fire is nothing but a distant memory. The scent is real. The arms are real, here, in this moment._

 

* * *


End file.
